August 9, 2007

My granddaughter saw her doctor last week.  We try to keep on top of things hopefully doing what we can
to prevent rather than trying to deal with the results later.  So, in that regard, blood tests were ordered for her.  The doctor asked how old she was I told her and she said, are you ready?

     "Oh, then by law I can still talk to you about her results...." 

Huh?  She's ten for goodness sake.  But, California passed a law...who knows when, that once a child reaches that "grown up age of 12" medical personnel in California can no longer discuss certain ahem...."medical conditions with the parents".  The doctor did say that they encourage the youngster to talk to their parents so that the doctors can talk to the parents too. 

I asked the doctor if my daughter had a COURT ORDER allowing us to get information when she reached that ripe old age of 12, would the doctor talk to us?  SHE DIDN'T KNOW, because, you see, she doesn't know exactly what the law says.  I can't blame her, she is a doctor.  But you can see what the tinfoil hatted leftist loons here in the great Nanny State on the Left Coast of America:  California have done:  taken over complete care and responsibility for our children in the state and the parents can't do a thing about it.   Except, pay for the upbringing of the child.   Welcome to the future of America if any DEMOCRAT becomes the next President. 

And, if you think this is bad, the hatred that the LEFT carries with it has gone so beyond the pale that there is nothing they won't do in the House of Representatives to get their own way EVEN IF THE VOTE IS AGAINST THEM!  Why, they just erase the vote and call it a win for their side.  FOLKS...we must change this or this country is doomed!! 

And, while I am at it, New Jersey's towns are in horrible trouble...apparently drugs have so overtaken Newark that no one can do anything about the criminal mess there.  Where is the Democratic Governor?
Why he is driven around without a seat belt at high rates of speed!  If he doesn't follow his states laws, why should the gangsters and druggies.

08/08/07

     I had been in just about every facet of the housing industry for over forty years.  My daughter for nearly 20.  I watched the destruction of the savings and loan business (which hurt the housing industry) from the inside by "government agencies".  I watched as companies were forced to be taken over and then sold for pennies to "friends".  They use the consequences of disintermediation but it accomplished the destruction of a business that helped people buy homes with strict credit guideline, low rates 4.5%, 30 year fixed mortgages, assumable without qualification.  But, it kept most people out of homes

   

     I watched as the 90's almost obliterated the housing business again.  Lots and lots of money from the world over.  I personally dealt with people from countries all over the world trying to buy up property cheap and willing to do whatever was necessary to get it.  I watched as agents and brokers involved themselves in very questionable bidding wars.  I watched acreage worth, at best, $500 per acre, inflate to over $40,000 per acre within 48 hours.

      I remember the "Gang of Forty Thieves" operating out of West Los Angeles as they used family, friends and clients to inflate property values.  They made out like bandits and two to three buyers later everyone lost their investment from a few thousand dollars to millions overnight.  People all over the world suffered, the housing market went to hell, again!

      I've watched and listened as the investors of the past 10-15 years have bought up ANYTHING the lenders handed them from brokers doing whatever they could to get a client into a home, or refinance or the piranhas flipping and brokers taking advantage of uneducated people throughout the country.   Not until a couple of years ago were there signs that someone(?) had decided that enough money was involved to want their hands on it and the subprime market was whacked to its knees and now is at the moment when its head will be sliced from its body.

 

    The harm that has been done by the investors in the past 18 months is just now being filtered all the way down to the street level.  Investors on Wall Street with investors from all over the globe.  Homes that cannot be sold will put sellers in danger. Companies that depend on housing will start to go under, buyers will help increase the rental prices because they can't buy homes and now must rent.  Construction, furniture, clothes and every single type of business that depends on people spending are beginning to hurt. Things will go from bad, now to worse in just a few months and then, you will see what happens.  They will be watching also, because in the zeal to "clean up" the housing market, someone forget the basics and forgot what this country has gone through  at least twice before when the housing industry is hurt badly.

 

     Watch: FNMA will be empowered by our government to buy up subprime loans rejected out of hand without reason at a huge loss to the lenders. Maybe even the "Democratic" congress will dole out billions again.  The market will take a couple of years to stabilize and we will see a complete remake of the housing finance market, again!  Is this the time when the small broker business will  go out of business.  Is this the time when the AE's will have to settle for lousy jobs paying a pittance?  Tens of thousands have been, are and shortly will be out of jobs, folks.  Think about everything each of these people

use, need buy every day, month and year and then project that onto the landscape called

America and when we seriously start to hurt, the countries from around the world will also hurt because they depend on the engine that is America to keep them afloat also.  Even China selling off large chunks of our treasuries will have little affect because they too are dependent on, wait for it:    You guessed it, America! 

 

Who has wrought what? And why?  I wonder, for the third time in my life, at least.

07/30/07

     LET US, PLEASE, GIVE IT UP!!!   We are beginning to sound like the KosKids...or posters and commentators of Huffpo, DU, MyDD, Astrois....etc., etc.  We need to get real real and begin to do what is necessary if we are going to try and take over one or both of the houses...I really don't think we stand a chance with the White House, because, I think the fix is in.  All the rest is window dressing.
     HOWEVER, having said that, let take over the Congress.  With its approval ratings in the teens...almost half of what the President's are, I say we stand a good chance.  But, that means, if we win, we all need to stay involved on a daily basis.  We need to keep informed and let them know via email, phone, fax and whatever what we want.  Otherwise, prepare yourselves to herded down that road called SOCIALISM harder and faster until it won't any difference who is in power in this country.
     We must remember that mankind...make that homo sapiens, are best known for getting what's easy...sure some of us fought to get where we are today, but, for verification purposes, check out the state of the rest of the world!!  Except for the EU, and that's changing at a rapid pace towards totalitarian by Muslim extremists and their own birth rates, every else you see people being herded here there everywhere.  Oh, sorry, I forgot about Australia, maybe Japan...but, that's about it.  Homo sapiens don't want to grow to be human beings, they want the easy road.  Socialism appeals to the majority of them:  let the government do it!  Wait until there are no more rich people interested in you, the lowly peon.  They'll be living life large and there won't even be leavings for you from their table.  They're doing it now.  Watch the "celebrities", the "politicians",   the Gores of this world.  Are any of them truly giving up their private jets; their red mean; their real furs; their huge houses; their 'help"? 
     We need the debate between our candidates because we need to establish that we conservatives or traditionalists are different (I think better, but...)we're  up on what's real, on what's happening now, we face our truths everyday.  I know and trust that we can put questions together that are smart, real and vitally necessary!!!  Let us go for it.  What say you?

07/25/07

*

A claim that grabbed our attention was Richardson's assertion that "Medicare – 33 percent of it is diabetes." But that surprisingly high figure turns out to be reasonably accurate. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has said that, "about 18 percent of Medicare beneficiaries have diabetes, yet they account for 32 percent of Medicare spending." To be strictly accurate Richardson should have said that diabetics account for the large share of Medicare spending, not diabetes. The disease is usually accompanied by a variety of other ailments that also require treatment. 


*

Biden: First of all, change the tax structure. We are giving people tax breaks who don't need it. The top 1 percent got an $85 billion a year tax break. It is not needed.

Actually, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the most affluent 1 percent of taxpayers will get about a $67 billion tax break this year, compared with what they would have paid without the Bush tax cuts. But the total is getting bigger each year as incomes grow. The estimated breaks for the top 1 percent will reach $76 billion in 2008 and $95 billion in 2010.

*

Clinton: First of all, I have proposed a strategic energy fund that I would fund by taking away the tax break for the oil companies, which have gotten much greater under Bush and Cheney.

Actually, the highly publicized energy bill the president signed in 2005 raised taxes slightly on the oil industry as a whole, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service:
Congressional Research Service: The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT05, P.L. 109-58) included several oil and gas tax incentives, providing about $2.6 billion of tax cuts for the oil and gas industry. In addition, EPACT05 provided for $2.9 billion of tax increases on the oil and gas industry, for a net tax increase on the industry of nearly $300 million over 11 years.

Tip of the hat to FactCheck.org....check them out, sign up, help to keep them honest and read the rest!!

07/06/07

Muslim suicide bombing...has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.
...

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

...nearly all suicide bombers are single.

h/t ace.mu.nu    via Psychology Today

07/06/07

Psychology Today runs a top ten politically incorrect truths about human behavior. A lot of this seems pretty damn bullpucky  to me, as does, well, all of psychology.  h/t ace.mu.nu

You just have to read these to see what you think...I haven't read through all of them, but, seems to me that they're pretty much on the right tack...what do you think?

07/14/07

I wish I could be 15 again!  Why?  Because I would work so hard to go to college.  When I was 15, there were no ways to attend college unless you had a great academic career...I didn't!  Today there are, especially for girls, so many ways to get help that I would have done everything I could to get there.  Again, why?  Read Normal Geras, and marvel at his writing ability.  It is deep and I have only copied a small portion of the essay.  He justs puts it so well as a Jew, as a European and ex African and a fully committed Socialist.  Socialist the way it was, not what our American and World Left have turned it into:  hatred for any but their own ideology! 

06/17/07

I have just finished Chaim Potok's , In the Beginning.  Like the "Chosen" and "I am Asher Lev", the story of the Jews continues to run through my psyche...the "why" I have crying out in my soul  for decades.  I am not a Jew.  But, I don't believe that it is necessary to be Jew to experience the hate that they have, and do on a daily basis.   And, therein lies the dilemma:  why are the Jews so hated in Western Culture?  It is an answer I have thought to discover and reading Potok is certainly worth the while on this.  He never says "why", but if you understand the life of Jews, it might give you an indication.  He is such a good writer, or should I say was?  He left us in 2002, only 73, so young.  He has a particular way with the details and emotions in the world he depicts so well, his characters exude themselves onto the page and into your soul if you are a human,
     Not only is childhood a very tough period to go through just as a regular kid, but, add to that smallness, or being slight, maybe not so good looking, or, uncomfortable with yourself or others, maybe too smart, or brash.  Why just about any behavior will draw attention.   Now, add to that being Jewish and all that entails, and I am amazed that they turn out so many smart adults (not all, by a long shot), and more amazing still that they could keep their humanity when everyone else has lost theirs.  And still, they keep on keeping on.  Again, not all of them, but enough of them,  They have done so much for Western Civilization.  Unlike any other group of people except our very own Founding Fathers.  It is remarkable and maybe understandable why the population of Earth wishes them dead!  They will not give up and are an easy target.  How brave of the rest of us!  But, how blind so many of them are.  One blog I read is by a Jew, lives in California is a screenwriter.  Great blog and I have posed my question, why?    This blog writer is smart, open, reasonable and is a traditionalist.   He has no answer.  But I keep asking and looking. 

06/17/07

    
     I often wonder if the world's hatred towards America isn't  twofold:  first, we have no true aristocracy and second we have achieved so much without the "aristocracy" whether it is based on birth, race, religion or wealth.  Now, of course, we can see the result of  hatred from religious fanatics of all ilk that has been under the rocks we call Islam that surrounds our Western Society.  That hate that has festered under the rocks is slimy and oozes a vile, poisonous substance that is very much like tar.  Makes it almost impossible to remove.  We didn't pay much attention to the rabid anti-semitism these past decades.  After what the Nazi's were capable of, the "gentle" world felt that nothing like it could rear it's ugly head again.  Or, maybe it was just waiting for tinfoil hatted leftist loons to rise up.  But all it did was crawl under the rocks everywhere is wasn't allowed free reign or in places where it was considered normal and bred and bred and bred until today, there is not one country in this world that doesn't hate Jews and America.  But like normal little homo sapiens, while they may hate us and do everything they can to bring us down, they love our money, our material things our country and can't get here in enough numbers to use and abuse the system their countries are incapable of reproducing.  Unlike past immigrants, they come here today without any respect for their hosts, our institutions or our needs.  They have been told lies about us and how can we not look foolish when our own countrymen, fueled by that hatred coming from under the rocks, spew hatred in print, audio and visual every day and lie, lie and lie and are never held accountable for the destruction they are setting in place.  You see, they have their money, their gated estates and their bodyguards so they can hold off the hordes longer and more effectively than us....just ask Edwards or Kennedy about their compounds.  Or may Barbara Streisand, Rosie O'Donnell or their ilk. 
     You and I will do the best we can do the slow or stop or prevent more despicable acts from the tinfoil hatted leftist loons and their supporters.  After all, what else is there to do.  This is our country too!

06/28/07

     Everything you mentioned I wouldn't hear, I did.  I read it all over the blogosphere, what I  read in my local metro was not as comprehensive.  As an immigrant myself and a citizen for over 45 years, I understand more than most.  What I find appalling is that the bill is still not something the average American can get a complete copy of or completely understand because of its legalese.  If the "bill" was so great, why was it put together in back rooms?  Why didn't the Senator's offices I contacted personally have little knowledge of what was in the immigration bill.  Why did it come out at roughly 323 pages, get returned at 370+ and then get returned again at over 400.  Why no committee meetings?  Why not allow time for discussion and amendments?  Why censor?  Why not follow the rules?
     I'll tell you why Linda, when you see that Ted Kennedy is in league with George Bush, you had better check the contents of your wallet!!  And, how can our borders be less secure than they are now when the coyotes are shooting at our border patrol agents while another illegal is drowning in the Rio Grande?  And most important of all to me, how the hell we do know with any certainty that it is only 12 million?  There could be thirty for all we know and if they are allowed to being their entire families over it could swell to 60 million!!  Why don't you contact the Mexican government and their elites and get them to do something for the first time in nearly 500 years to better the lives of their people instead of despising us for our positions while they depend on the money the illegals send home every month.  I bet when those checks come no one in Mexico is thinking about how hard it must be to be away from home and working hard so help support their families.

06/20/07

     It seems to me that I am very fortunate to live in this day and age with the mentality and morality of the pre-baby boomer generation.  It affords me the freedom to clearly see, hear and experience some of the insanities of this world.   But also, allows me to  see,  hear or read  debates, opinion or discussions from myriad  people  on all manner of subjects.  Like the debate with an atheist,  Christopher Hitchens and Mark Roberts, Christian evangelical.

     The "debate" if based on Hitchens book  "god is Not Great!" and I have not heard it nor read it, yet.  I have, however, read Pastor Roberts written blog posts on the book.  I have, only briefly, read some of the comments which appear to come largely from non-believers. 

     The old admonition never to discuss politics or religion seems to be gone in this day and age of the internet.  Perhaps with the "religion" of Peace acting out throughout the world with ridiculous but frightening and utterly violent responses makes this a very necessary modern thing:  to include the audience at every level from everywhere.  This, rather than a scholarly dispute or discussion away from view of the "people". 

     Anyway, I have not read Hitchens' book and may not read Roberts' either, but I don't need that, I don't think to blog about the issue of "god id Not Great" or God is dead or God is great....you get my drift.  Today, we in the Western world hear "allah" but do not hear the world "god" because one is not yet another name for the other.  Yet, we must begin to listen, pay attention, learn and make sure that the Western world and it's culture survive.  If we do not, then the globe will be plummeted into an age of darkness unlike any known before.  And an age from which we will never return. 

It occurs to me that the "debate" or "discussion" of whether a God exists is really not totally important just this minute.  The debate or discussion we should be having is "how can we control the fanatics committed to bloody world domination"?  Listening to our politicians and our religious leaders in the government, that is not a real subject.  It is a subject that is not true for a large portion of the planet.   But, it is a very hard truth we need to face.   It is never fun to look into the eyes and the soul of the devil.  But you must if you want to begin to understand just exactly what it is they are planning for you.  The hard left and the left in general are so caught up in Bush hatred, they have not the time to focus on anything else.  So, they focus on the environment, the "global warming", light bulbs, vegetarianism, furism, carism, materialism!  Why, Sheryl Crow wants us to use only  ONE  square of toilet paper!  There is people trying to live without the modern amenities that make life worth living.  Electricity, the refrigerator, the flush toilet.  People like this should move to the middle east, they'd be right at home in some of these countries.  This is what the Islamofascists wish from us. 
      So, it comes down to this:  you either have a God that is involved like Allah and demands every kind of sacrifice 24/7 or you have a God that leaves us alone because he gave us free will, or, there is no God anywhere!  Whatever the result, you and me and ours will pay the price one way or another, here, there or in the hereafter, if there is such a thing.   Maybe I wont' read Hitchens or finish with Robert's posts afterall.

06/20/07

It is very, very tough to be born!  In particular if the labor your parent had to go through was tough or tough and long.  There is no knowing just what that kind of birth experience would leave behind in the recesses of the brain.  Nor, would it be possible to look say 20 or 50 years later and try to determine an answer to that.  All of that is tough enough, to come from a place that is warm and on which you are totally dependent for life, but to be literally pushed out into a an alien environment where there is hunger, pain, cold, noise and "aloneness".  A place where you may or may be be accepted for what you are and may not be loved well, if at all.  A world where there is no guarantee at birth that you will have all of the necessaries for a decent life.  Talk about a gamble and one not of your own choosing. 

Anyway, all of the above only to come to understand within a very short time that there are perils unknown.  Where parents, although you were lucky and were loved, nonetheless had their own problems in a variety of levels that may or may not have prevented you from feeling safe and unconditionally loved.  Add to that the fact that most of us move from place to place.  Sibling may or may not arrive over the course of time and create more problems for one not knowledgeable in the vargaries of the world they were born into.   A world where you will meet people who dislike you for a reason or no reason at all.  Peers that will make your life better or a hell you have to get through. 

Now, add to all of that mixture, a religion that  the world hates;  allows people to physically harm you or kill you in the most hideous of ways; where virtually no one will come to your assistance or defense but where you will be expected to exceed the normal behavioral modes of, not only your parents expectations, but also your  religion.  And no  one ever before  can tell  why?  Is it any wonder this world is do dysfunctional?   Is it not a miracle that you actually grow up, get old, older and finally die.   I wonder, knowing all of above, would you wish to be born?